Sonia Gandhi's leadership of the Congress is facing two major problems, one or both of which may be insurmountable.
Manmohan Singh has proved a non-asset in securing the Congress moral and political high-ground vis-&agrave;-vis the BJP/Left opposition. No sooner than the 2G JPC was conceded, Wikileaks turned adverse floodlight on the PM's corrupt 2008 parliament confidence-vote victory and his shameful pro-Americanism.
Faced with bleak assembly-poll prospects in UP and in Andhra Pradesh that are critical to gaining national power, Manmohan Singh is not making it any easier for Sonia Gandhi to enthrone Rahul Gandhi in 2014. Manmohan Singh's liabilities are beginning to overshadow his loyalty to the Sonia Gandhi family, and even the BJP suspects the same.
Arun Jaitley insinuated that Manmohan Singh's "birthright" taunt flung at LK Advani was actually directed at the dynastic succession being planned for Sonia by her son.
The second major problem for the Sonia Gandhi leadership is Rahul Gandhi. So far, it was whispered by Congress party managers that Rahul Gandhi is not prime-minister material. One Congress general secretary calls him "murkh", which does not decently translate into English. Now, Wikileaks has added credence to those whispers, with quotations from Congressmen that they are awaiting Rahul's exit and Priyanka Vadra nee Gandhi's, entry into politics.
So far as this writer can tell, Sonia Gandhi is not ready to withdraw Rahul from the PM race, having planned an entire future for him. But Rahul Gandhi's much-advertised unsuitability for prime-ministership keeps the crisis from resolution, and keeps growing.

The qualities that got Manmohan Singh the job from Sonia Gandhi were his personal honesty and his Gandhi-family loyalties. But the country has had enough of him. Key sections of the Congress are unwilling to fight his battles, especially as they relate to his pro-Americanism.
Pulling the Congress/government's chestnuts out of the fire time after time is Pranab Mukherjee, and he wants to be PM from 2012 to 2014 in return. The PM's Advani potshot may even have been directed at Pranab Mukherjee, and their rivalry is longstanding.
When Sonia and Manmohan Singh divided the leadership, her control over domestic politics was formidable. This gave her the confidence to give him the government, secure that she ultimately controlled it. But Sonia's political charm is fading (related to the law of diminishing returns, plus UPA failures). And Manmohan Singh is no help. He has no control over the government and he can make no contribution to politically stabilising the Congress and giving it the upper hand on the long road to 2014. So what's to be done?
Manmohan Singh's liabilities are beginning to overshadow his loyalty to the Sonia Gandhi family, and even the BJP suspects the same.

Given Pranab Mukherjee's obvious political skills, vast experience as finance, defence and foreign minister, and apparent prime-ministerial qualities, he should succeed the PM, who can be promoted as president of India next year.
Manmohan Singh will not go easily. But insiders say he is far from well, and he brings no equity to the Congress any longer. He is again embarked on the fatal project of peace with Pakistan that threatens to engulf the government and party in fresh controversy.
Pranab Mukherjee brings baggage certainly. Positioning himself as Indira Gandhi's successor post her assassination cost him politically, perhaps even the prime ministership. It could come to assail his run for PM again. But on the flip side, Pranab Mukherjee could manage the opposition to a degree that government becomes functional again.
It has to be accepted that the artificial split of party and government (with Sonia managing one and Manmohan the other) has not worked, and nobody could be a better bridge between the two than Pranab. With the 2G JPC constituted and angry UPA allies waiting to backstab the Congress, someone like Pranab Mukherjee would fit the bill.
But whether Pranab comes or Manmohan Singh stays, the future of a Rahul Gandhi as PM looks darkly clouded. Even the rosiest poll verdict of 2014 (a fairytale by today's reckoning) cannot make it easy for Rahul to run the country. If he throws up his hands and says no, there are any number of takers. But what about Sonia Gandhi's plans for Rahul? Will circumstances precipitate Priyanka Vadra's entry?
These are some of the tricky questions and conceivably insurmountable problems facing a declining Congress leadership today.

After the Congress suffered electoral losses in Punjab and Uttarakhand in February 2007, some party members advocated that party president Sonia Gandhi â€œjettisonâ€ Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election in April-May 2007 and â€œput a more saleable political face at the head of the government,â€ according to a United States Embassy cable (100159: confidential) sent on March 13, 2007.
â€œFollowing a string of recent local-level electoral defeats in Mumbai, Uttarakhand, and Punjab, Sonia Gandhi and her personal advisors are very concerned that the impending Uttar Pradesh (UP) elections will turn out horribly for Congress. As a result, some are advocating that she jettison Prime Minister Singh â€” whose message of rapprochement with Pakistan has been criticized by the BJP â€” and put a more saleable political face at the head of the government,â€ the cable sent under the name of Embassy Charge d'Affaires Geoffrey Pyatt reported to Washington.
The Embassy appeared worried about the â€œreform cadreâ€ in the government being sidelined by the â€œold lineâ€ Congress with socialist sympathies. â€œWhat seems clear in the aftermath of recent polls is that the reform cadre of Manmohan Singh, [Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission] Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and Finance Minister [P.] Chidambaram are politically diminished, Sonia Gandhi's inner coterie is deeply worried, and the old line Congress and their Communist fellow-travelers are empowered. Politics in India are a mess right now for Congress, and while the GOI [Government of India] is publicly optimistic about the nuclear deal, it is clearly caught in a domestic political eddy,â€ the cable added.
It also took note of the political compulsions of the Congress that might have a bearing on U.S. interests. â€œOthers are urging that the Congress hunker down and play it safe on the budget, inflation, economic reform, and foreign policy â€” including the nuclear deal â€” to minimize the negative impact on UP voters, many of whom are Muslim and take a dim view of the United States.â€ Energy sector concerns

The cable, accessed by The Hindu through WikiLeaks, was sent ahead of a visit to India by Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman to further the U.S.-India relationship in the energy sector.
Mr. Pyatt, in the â€œscene-setterâ€ for the visit, expressed the hope that Mr. Bodman could win over the Indian nuclear scientific establishment with the prospect of â€œfuture-oriented programsâ€ like the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. â€œYour scheduled meetings in Mumbai with Department of Atomic Energy Secretary Dr. Anil Kakodkar and in New Delhi with Special Envoy Shyam Saran offer an opportunity to highlight the many benefits of U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation, which could be lost if India does not conclude the 123 Agreement quickly,â€ he wrote.
Briefing Mr. Bodman on what to expect during his meetings in India, the Charge said: â€œThe Prime Minister will likely tell you that his number one priority is extending the benefits of India's rapid growth to the 700 million Indians â€” mostly in the rural sector â€” who continue to live at a near subsistence level. Rising food and fuel prices have particularly hurt the poor, creating a political backlash against the UPA government in recent state elections. Prime Minister Singh and your other interlocutors will be very interested in your ideas on how the United States can help with India's energy needs in the short and long term, particularly with respect to the rural sector.â€
Looking ahead to Mr. Bodman's meeting with Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli Deora, Mr. Pyatt wrote that Mr. Deora had â€œclose ties to Sonia Gandhi's inner circle and a political base in Mumbai, and he is central to India's international quest for growing petroleum and natural gas imports, and cooperation with the United States in domestic industry development and regulatory policy.â€ The Minister had told American diplomats that India did not expect a final agreement to be reached on the oil pipeline with Iran due to Iranian unreliability and Iran changing the terms of the June 2005 agreement to sell India LNG from its South Pars field for 25 years. â€œThe MPNG increasingly sees LNG from Qatar and Australia as a more viable option than several proposed pipeline projects,â€ the cable noted.
While giving the Energy Secretary a backgrounder to the U.S.-India civil nuclear negotiations, Mr. Pyatt said Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon had handed Under Secretary Nicholas Burns a â€œcompletely inadequate counter-draft to the 123 Agreement â€” authored by the skeptics in India's nuclear establishment who remain concerned about U.S. efforts to â€˜entrap' India and constrain its strategic program.â€
Mr. Burns, the cable added, had asked Mr. Menon to â€œprovide a more workable basis on which the U.S. and India can continue talks, and invited an Indian team with negotiating authority to the U.S. for the next round of discussions.â€ (This was sent before the two countries released the full text of the 123 agreement, which allows for cooperation on peaceful uses of nuclear energy, in August 2007.)
Analysing the compulsions of the Congress-led government in this context, it said:
â€œThe politics around India's energy policy reflects a struggle between needed economic reform and political impediments to change. Prime Minister Singh and Deputy Chairman Ahluwalia are well aware of what economic reforms are needed to enhance India's long term growth.
â€œThey realize that reasonable regulation and market-based pricing of electricity, petroleum products, natural gas, and coal would be most conducive to encouraging investment, reliable revenue streams, energy efficiency, and rational choice among projects and energy sources. However, the political imperatives of middle-class and poor voters' resistance to price increases, particularly with consumer inflation recently exceeding 6%, have induced the GOI to maintain price controls and government subsidies. Similarly, although the GOI privately doubts Iran's reliability as a potential source of natural gas by pipeline or of liquefied natural gas, it continues negotiations with Iran to appease Muslim and left-wing voters and Members of Parliament.â€